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Dessert

New York Ginger Bread

A moist gingerbread cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, spices, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

New York Ginger Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Add the brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and add it to the sour cream.

  4. Mix the sour cream with the molasses in a separate bowl.

  5. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light and the whites until frothy, then combine them.

  6. In another bowl, mix the salt and spices with the flour.

  7. Add the egg mixture to the butter and sugar, then stir in the molasses and cream mixture.

  8. Beat the batter until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while beaten whites trap air that helps it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to release gas, helping the gingerbread rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and deep flavor, and its acidity helps the baking soda react.
Sour cream
Adds acidity to activate the baking soda and moisture for a tender texture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and add it to the sour cream. Baking soda needs an acid to produce carbon dioxide. Dissolving it first and mixing it into the acidic sour cream spreads the reaction evenly so the gingerbread rises uniformly rather than in patches.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, cream, molasses, egg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream, molasses, egg, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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